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VINEYARD HAVEN -- Modular homes are literally barging into Martha's Vineyard in record numbers.

Several times a week flat-bottomed freight barges arrive at night hauled by tugboats. When the morning tide is right, what appear as massive boxes wrapped in plastic move from their bobbing berths onto flat-bed trailers, to be taken to a waiting foundation. Workmen unwrap and prepare the boxes, and soon each is deftly plucked by a crane, lowered, and stacked in place. Within hours Martha's Vineyard has another house.

''At least a quarter of all the new houses on the Vineyard in the last year are modular, no doubt," said Tisbury building inspector Kenneth Barwick. ''And that trend will likely go higher as time goes on."

Once lumped in with the ''double-wide" set of trailer homes, modular housing is building its own identity as fine residential housing, particularly convenient and cost-effective for vacation markets where labor is scare and expensive, such as the Cape and Islands in Massachusetts and the Maine coastline.

Just how much of a savings largely depends on the prevailing tradesmen's wages in a given area and material costs, but nationally, the price of modular construction averages about 15 percent less than stick-built houses.

''And if a homeowner acts as his own general contractor -- which is not that big of a challenge with a modular -- that savings can be 30 percent or more," said Edward L. Miano of Atlantic Homes LLC of Needham and Oak Bluffs.

Right now, modular homes make up just a tiny percentage of new housing starts nationally -- 2 percent --although the figures are higher for New England states.

''But I see it moving up to 7 or 8 percent nationally before the end of this decade -- quite a growth spurt to come," said Fred C. Hallahan, principal of Hallahan Associates, a Baltimore firm that compiles industry statistics.

In the early 1900s, Sears, Roebuck & Co. marketed the company's ''House by Mail," a prefabricated dwelling that offered more than 100,000 Americans a chance at home ownership. In contemporary times the United States lags behind Europe in the push to modular. Now, however, about 120 companies are making modular homes in the United States, with about a dozen in the Northeast. Some are fully integrated, with their own wood lots, sawmills, and plywood plants, with marketing and construction teams to aid prospective buyers.

Thanks to modern building materials and engineering innovations, today's modular homes are a far cry from the Sears boxes. The advent of computer-assisted cutting machines, for example, can transfer complicated specifications and designs into ready-to-fit lumber in a fraction of the time required by carpenters.

''Nothing would give away our house as a prefab," said Charles M. Utz, whose two-story Cape is a handsome stand-out house in a Vineyard Haven neighborhood of look alike stick-built homes. It is sided with white cedar shingles and trimmed in red cedar.

Gleaming granite countertops in the kitchen, hardwood floors throughout, French doors, and wide archways joining cooking, dining, and living spaces all lend a warm feel of designer-built-and-decorated. A light-filled atrium doubles as a stairway and art gallery.

Modular homes are assembled from an array of units, or modules, each constructed in a factory, shipped to the building site, and attached together into a finished house. All the major components from the roofing, framing, and plumbing, to electrical work, cabinetry, flooring, and trim details are often in place when the modules arrive.

''Think of a fully built house, sliced and diced, and moved to a building site in huge pieces," said John Leite, president of D & G Modular Homes of Oak Bluffs. ''A crane hefts the pieces, chunk by chunk, into place, like kids with building blocks."

Once set in place, the modules are bolted together. For some homes, siding is already attached; for others, clapboards, cedar shingles, or stucco are applied on site. The same procedure is followed for roofing. Homeowners can choose from a wide array of styles -- and can do it on their own, without the help of an architect or other professional. About the only feature a modular can't instantly provide is a masonry, brick, or stone fireplace.

''You want cherry cabinets, it's no problem. Hardwood floors? Just pick the kind. State-of-the-art zero-clearance fireplaces, both for wood and gas, are standard options," said Edward Charter, owner of Arrowhead Homes of Vineyard Haven. Among the 75 modulars he's installed on the Vineyard are humble Capes and grand trophy homes.

The underlying reason so many Cape and island homeowners are opting for modulars is simple arithmetic: the fewer times local tradesmen bang a hammer, the more bucks the homeowner saves. Charter's rule-of-thumb cost for a budget-conscious modular home of excellent quality is $115 per square foot, which gets the buyer a place in move-in condition. A custom home, meanwhile, starts at around $200 per square foot for the most entry-level home on the Vineyard.

''Multiply that by only 2,000 square feet, a small house, and that's serious money," Charter said.

On the Vineyard, even custom home builders who'd otherwise scoff at a prefab admit to a grudging respect for modern modulars. Modular homes are also a partial answer to the affordable housing crunch on the island. Several developments that include discounted, affordable homes to qualified Vineyard residents rely on modular construction to lessen costs.

And for many well-to-do homeowners on the Vineyard and Nantucket, time is even more important than money. A modular home can be delivered within eight weeks of ordering, and while the initial assembly can take just a day or so, contractors said to allow up to 10 weeks for finish work, landscaping, paving, and punch list.

Proponents also said that by their nature modular homes have high-quality controls.

''A modular home is constructed with precision-cut, dry materials by highly skilled professionals," said Leite, ''Not some pick-up laborer with a hangover and a Skilsaw in the rain."